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2015 Year in review

I've left it too late this year to do the top 5 makes or top 5 fails so thought I'd do a bit of a mixed review post.

This year has been full of ups and downs in both sewing and life.

I lost my beautiful little boy cat in January.

I made this in February and still wear it all the time to work. McCalls 6754

Around March/April I got diagnosed with depression and social anxiety, its under control now but I had a few months where I didn't even touch my sewing machine.

I finally started to feel like me again and started sewing regularly in the last part of the year. In September I made the Cascade duffle for the second time.I'm pretty proud of this jacket, its one where I feel I nailed it on matching a fabric to a pattern perfectly.

October saw our daughter turn 16 and get her Learners

October also saw my worse quilting disaster. I got a homespun from Lincraft, made 2 cot quilts and when I washed them the dye ran so bad I don't think it was ever set. I used a total of 10 colour catchers which it saturated and tried 2 dylon colour run savers which didn't do anything.....I complained and made sure they removed that bolt from the store but at the end of the day I doubt I will ever buy fabric from Lincraft again.

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This is a scrap of the same fabric sitting on top of the washed quilt, shows how much colour had washed out

In November the daughter went on a school camp to the Grampians. Now this is a kid who has competed in Karate for 4 years and had just returned from a student exchange overseas without a scratch. Well she managed to fall over and broke her cheekbone. Luckily it didn't need surgery and healed up really quickly.

I've been pretty busy with karate, attended 3 seminars and 2 gradings this year. Started coaching a lot more too. I had a seminar in December in Melbourne where I got to meet Jesse Enkamp (it was so hot I am barely functioning in this photo! It reached about 45 degrees celcius in the dojo...)

I also finally listened to my doctor and lost some weight this year (I have osteoarthritis in my knees and for the first time in a couple of years am not in pain). I had to do a big clean out of the wardrobe and will be madly sewing in the new year to replace a lot of basics.

We got a new rescue kitten just before Christmas, she's called Neko (Japanese for cat). She's currently sleeping on my chest as I type this!

So onwards to 2016! I have an overflowing stash I want to sew through. We have booked tickets to Tokyo in August so all available money will be going towards that instead of new fabric anyway. I'm finally starting to get a better feel for what I need and wear, it's not exciting or glamorous clothing but it gets used a lot.

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